Section 92a: The Pirates Will Always Win

"The head of UK ISP TalkTalk, Charles Dunstone, has made the comment
ahead of the communications minister's Digital Britain report that
illegal downloading cannot be stopped. He said 'If you try speed humps
or disconnections for peer-to-peer, people will simply either disguise
their traffic or share the content another way. It is a game of Tom and
Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this
battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into
putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid.'
Instead he advocates allowing users 'to get content easily and cheaply.'"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/05/dunstone-carphone-warehouse-results-pirates

 

warehouse-results-pirates

Quite right, the media corporates made a strategic mistake by trying to deny
users wanting to access music and video over the internet. If they had
worked with the new technology, instead of taking a Canute like stance
against the tide, our world could be a different place today.

Unfortunately, they are still trying to deny users ...
http://news.cnet.com/newsblog/?keyword=Stephanie+Lenz
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/daily/2009/0123.shtml

 

Why should anyone care ?
TV programmes are paid for by advertising rates which are set by Neilson
ratings which are not affected by downloads.

 

As you say, only for the last couple of years.

For a decade or so, there was no lawful means for NZers to get music on-
line. For years, you could buy a mp3 player in NZ, but there was no lawful
way of loading music onto it. (Format shifting of audio was unlawful until
the law change last year.) This established the situation where most people
think it is normal to download music from the internet.

This ridiculous situation still applies to video material (format shifting
not lawful) and to purchasing backing music for videos users may wish to
make. (See the links above)

 

I was only a kid at the time when I watched it, but that was a great
series.

I'd love to watch it again, but no way I'm going to pay US$150 to do
so. And it sounds like I'm not alone. I often wonder how rights
holders come up with prices like that.

It's like they are only going to make a limited number of copies, and
price it at the max price that only just allows them to sell every
copy in a set period of time. It's all about controlling the supply
side of the equation.

Duplication and distribution doesn't have to be expensive these days -
why can't they be a bit more innovative and have a go at growing the
demand side instead?

 

Watch it on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=james+burke+connections&aq=0&oq=james+burke

 

You know your starting to sound like an apologist for the
entertainment industry. Hollier than thou

 

Totally agree.

Was curious to see what the fuss was about so I grabbed the first two
episodes off isohunt. Not bad, but of it's time. Reminded me a bit of
Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections (or vice versa).

Might grab a few other episodes. Might not. Certainly not worth US$150

Holy ones feel free to condemn

Regards
Lodi

 

And play it on what? We used to have a DVD player that did multizone.
Sadly it died and I have not since found a cheapie to replace it with
yet.

I have a PS3, it plays DVDs ... oh yeah, zone locked to zone 4 (but I
am willing to know if it is able to be made multizone) SONY hates it
when you put money in the pocket of SONY US rather than SONY NZ. So it
won't play any of my Zone 1 DVDs.

I have a DVD player in my laptop that will play Zone 1 ... now ...
after a huge argument with the store becasue the DVD consortium has
decreed that all DVD drives for PCs are to be RPC-2 zone locked which
will stop all software zone unlocking unless the firmware was sloppily
done (ie: not encrypted) so you can get a hacked firmware for it.
Which you can only assess on a drive by drive basis and lose warranty
over.

Yup, after spending thousands on DVDs and CDs I am really feeling like
my custom is appreciated.

Ahh, I hadn't mentioned my CDs yet. I have a couple that flat out will
not rip to my harddrive for transfer to my mp3 player. Well copy
protected it turns out. I downloaded them.

As far as I am concerned the 'pirates' and the people that write the
software that cirumvents copy protection are providing a service for
people like me who otherwise would struggle to use legally purchased
media in a legal manner.

As has been pointed out, if the industries had worked on taking
advantage of technology from the word go rather than just seeing it as
an evil, things might be different but by treating honest customers as
criminals all they did was make the situation worse. As far as I am
concerned it is hard to decide to spend money on something that in a
couple of years time I might not be able to watch or listen to.

The music and movie industries have decided on the business strategy
of selling a lower quality product for a higher price, I don't know
how much their executives are paid but it's obviously too much.

 

I am aware of this but last time went to have a look (hoping to find a
sale item over Queens Birthday weekend) the cheapest I could find was
a $100 DVD player with HDMI out. I know they come down to $50-60 for a
basic no frills so I am waiting until then.

Guess what, I know that as well, I was just pointing out that it is
not all cut and dried on the "just pay for overseas DVDs" front. From
my understanding one time in the distant past out commerce commision
actually had balls. They stipulated that DVD players in NZ were
supposed to be multizone. Now they don't care.

No it won't. RPC-2 is a total f&*k of a thing to work around. I have
already made a lengthy post here which was commented on by others. I
learnt a heck of a lot about DVD zoning, circumvention of zoning and
drives and the business in my arguments over the DVD drive that came
with my laptop.

Tried it? I have not as the CDs with copy protection were ones I had
had for a while so the recipts were long gone. Yes, I could take my
argument to the distributor but like they care. Going back to the
laptop, the whole issue with zoning and DRM is too complex for store
staff, managers and most of head office (with the DVD laptop problem
the head office people were asking the IT staff for advice). Add that
to the general reluctance to accept the CGA/FTA for anything other
than an excuse to rort NZers on price and the signs all over town that
amount "if we can play the disc when you return it then no refund" and
you have a hugly costly (in the sense of time) argument ahead of you
for the sake of a $25-35 piece of plastic, which you can just download
at CD quality anyway thanks to kind and generous people on the
internet.

What about copying DVDs you own? Kids DVDs are notorious for getting
scratched, still illegal though in NZ. Want to dump your DVD, that you
own to Hard drive to play via media center? Still illegal. Copying
music to ipods etc has only recently been made legal did you ever
break the law before it was legal? what was your excuse if you did? I
mean, technically the licence you had for the music did not have an
override to allow format shifting.

IANAL but from memory VLC media player is technically illegal as it
breaks the encyption on the DVD which is still illegal. In fact unless
you only use the big commercial players that pay licence fees the DVD
software is technically beraking the law.

But for most consumers they do not, nor should they have to know or
care about the DRM. The only time consumers find out is when it blows
up in thier face take Microsofts old music servers which after public
backlash they turned back on and a similar incident recently involving
some walmart music thing. I have had bad experiences with the DRM on
the coke music store (never did get that song to play) and with the
public library audiobook download which rooted windows media player.

No conspiracy theory, thats obviously just you trying to argue with
nothing left. I am not trying to confuse anyone and my 'argument' was
factual and logical.

If, as a business owner or executive you ignore market trends and
'stay the course' and continue to 'stay the course' after failure
after faliure then your business deserves to die. Other businesses
have worked out ways to monetise change rather than just fight it. The
executives of the music and movie industries stuck thier heads in the
sand and pretty much hoped the internet would go away. Then they knee
jerk reacted (for example the infamous root kit, and the badly
implmented DRM) which annoyed the consumers affected. They were far
too slow to work out how to distribute music online with iTunes being
the first really successful model.

Point out my factual faliures and I will be happy to address them.

As I mentioned they were too slow. By the time they had a model that
worked 'the internet' had been providing the same service for free for
years. Then to top it all off when they finally get thier stuff
together it was initally all compressed when 'the internet' was
offering CD quality and full DVD rips.

When I said 'higher quality' I did not mean the LP/CD or VHS/DVD
difference. I meant the fact that as an informed consumer I can choose
between paying for a DRM laden DVD that in a few years time I might
not be able to view without difficulty which comes with a box and
piece of plastic that I don't want and adverts at the begining I can't
skip, or I can
just go download it.

I don't understand this comment at all. All I was pointing out was
that in the real world people don't just change the way they do things
because a business if finally providing the product they have wanted.
People have gotten used to the idea of copying music from thier
friends and off the internet because until iTunes came along, other
than piracy (arr arr) there was no other way to get the one good track
from the pop CD or to get a song easily on to your iPod without having
to go through the rigmarole of ripping it, tagging it etc.

Which does not make it right but then again neither was copying music
to ipods less than 3 years ago.

You are quite right that with a store like iTunes offering (finally)
non-DRM music at track by track reasonable prices people should not be
pirating but the fact is they have had to for so long that now it is
second nature.

As I pointed out they were just too slow, society accellerated past
them while they stood around scratching thier testicles and they are
going to have to work hard to catchup.

But catching up is hard to do when you do are the 'bad guy'. At the
same time as they are hoping people will stop being mean and stealing
thier product they are literally buying legislation. You want a
conspiracy? You can't tell me that almost every western nation
happened to come up with the idea of a 3 strikes law at the same time
by chance?

They contiunue to use DRM on CD media (last time I had a random look
none of the modern CDs have the CD logo anymore). They continue to
bleat on about falling album sales while selling single tracks online
(work it out, its not all piracy). They manipulate the statistics
(every downloaded song is a lost sale! whatever). In one breath they
say that as an act of goodwill they will cease prosecuting music
pirates for a while and then prosecute some music pirates. In short
they lie.

I used to think, as you do now, that copying was bad. I felt guilty
when I was at high school and could not afford a computer game or CD
and I would copy it or a group of us would chip in and buy it and copy
it. Later on when I had money I bought some of those same albums on CD
(not the games though). I used to actually register shareware back in
the day that shareware was popular. But I hate having to work at
getting fair use out of what I buy. Why pay to be treated as a
criminal?

The main reason I still buy DVDs and CDs is because deep down I like
having a 'thing'. But everytime I sit down to watch and get forced to
watch some crappy advert or FBI warnings for three differnt countries
I wonder why I paid for that.

The movie industry still has a chance, currently it is still better
from a quality and enjoyment point of view to purchase or rent rather
than download but times are changing fast and so should they. If they
have smarts they'll succeed where the big music companies failed.

 

The DVD logo means the license has been paid and the DVD association has
supplied the keys.
New Zealand doesn't have the US DMCA and is not a party to the WIPO
copyright treaty
If you are using VLC to view a DVD, that is not an infringing act, and
using it to defeat region coding seems to be explicitly exempted by the
Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2008/0027/latest/whole.html#DLM1122723

Definitions of TPM terms

*

In sections 226A to 226E, unless the context otherwise requires,—

“TPM or technological protection measure—
o

“(a) means any process, treatment, mechanism, device, or
system that in the normal course of its operation prevents or inhibits
the infringement of copyright in a TPM work; but
o

“(b) for the avoidance of doubt, does not include a
process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that, in
the normal course of operation, it only controls any access to a work
for non-infringing purposes (for example, it does not include a process,
treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that it controls
geographic market segmentation by preventing the playback in New Zealand
of a non-infringing copy of a work)

 

The DVD logo means the license has been paid and the DVD association has
supplied the keys.
New Zealand doesn't have the US DMCA and is not a party to the WIPO
copyright treaty
If you are using VLC to view a DVD, that is not an infringing act, and
using it to defeat region coding seems to be explicitly exempted by the
Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2008/0027/latest/whole.html#DLM1122723

Definitions of TPM terms

*

In sections 226A to 226E, unless the context otherwise requires,—

“TPM or technological protection measure—
o

“(a) means any process, treatment, mechanism, device, or
system that in the normal course of its operation prevents or inhibits
the infringement of copyright in a TPM work; but
o

“(b) for the avoidance of doubt, does not include a
process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that, in
the normal course of operation, it only controls any access to a work
for non-infringing purposes (for example, it does not include a process,
treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that it controls
geographic market segmentation by preventing the playback in New Zealand
of a non-infringing copy of a work)

 

The DVD logo means the license has been paid and the DVD association has
supplied the keys.
New Zealand doesn't have the US DMCA and is not a party to the WIPO
copyright treaty
If you are using VLC to view a DVD, that is not an infringing act, and
using it to defeat region coding seems to be explicitly exempted by the
Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2008/0027/latest/whole.html#DLM1122723

Definitions of TPM terms

*

In sections 226A to 226E, unless the context otherwise requires,—

“TPM or technological protection measure—
o

“(a) means any process, treatment, mechanism, device, or
system that in the normal course of its operation prevents or inhibits
the infringement of copyright in a TPM work; but
o

“(b) for the avoidance of doubt, does not include a
process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that, in
the normal course of operation, it only controls any access to a work
for non-infringing purposes (for example, it does not include a process,
treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that it controls
geographic market segmentation by preventing the playback in New Zealand
of a non-infringing copy of a work)

 

But that's infringement of the content holders' Intellectual Property rights
too, isn't it? After all, they made their content available on the
understanding it would be controlled by region-coding restrictions. When you
buy DVDs from overseas, you're infringing these restrictions--doesn't that
count as stealing the content? Or do you believe that certain kinds of
Intellectual Property infringement are OK?

 

A great way of money laundering.
"A group, including a number of DJs, have been accused of making
hundreds of thousands of pounds by buying their own music online with
stolen credit cards."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/music/newsid_8094000/8094637.stm

 

It is probably only the tip of the iceberg.
How much are Apple and Amazon pocketing from similar scams ?

 

Apple says they don't make a lot of money on music sales - enough to
cover the cost of providing the service, so presumably there is a small
profit involved. The bulk of the sale price goes to the record company
(or indie). I expect this could be estimated based on Apple's quarterly
financial reports (broken down into company segments) and their reported
number of music sales within the same period, but I haven't gone hunting
for a detailed analysis.

The main point of the iTunes Store is for Apple to sell more iPods and
iPhones, which is where they make the money. It ensures there is a legal
supply of music which can be downloaded for use on iPods and iPhones,
and it can be accessed directly from the iPod Touch and iPhone. (Music
sales for use on Mac OS or Windows are a side benefit.)

 

Not a great analogy, think about it.

 

The figures are in the article. 459k spent for 200k return, so who kept
the major share ?
Its a great way of money laundering.

 

Only if the crooks made the cars and bought them with dirty money to
launder it. Its a lot better than other methods like racing and gambling